Dacha described her favorite Thai sausage and it scared me: raw pork and rice, left to ferment at room temperature for several days. I then saw the same in Kris Yenbamroon'g book "Night + Market" and decided to give it a try. He uses Jasmine and Sticky Rice, while Dacha wasn't specific. I'm trying Kris' first, because he gives plenty of details and the book has good pictures. It's fermented 2-4 days to develop a lactic tartness, then refrigerated to stop fermentation, and grilled. I'm augmenting his measurements with my metric measures as we made the recipe.
1 C 165 g Cooked Sticky Rice
3/4 C 130 g Steamed Jasmine Rice
2 Lb 900 g Pork Shoulder, ground (80% fat)
3/4 C 140 g Minced Garlic (2-3 heads!)
1 Tbs 13 g Sugar
2 1/2 Tbs 30 g Kosher Salt
2 tsp 6 g ground White Pepper
6 ft 2 m Sausage Casings
Cook the Sticky Rice and Jasmine Rice as appropriate to their style, then cool.
Peel the Garlic and mince in a food processor.
Cut the Pork Shoulder into strips that fit your meat grinder's feed tube, chill it well, then grind.
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| Grinding the Pork; rice top left, minced garlic top right |
Combine ground Pork, well-separated Rice, Garlic, Sugar, Salt, Pepper and make sure Pork and Rice are evenly distributed with no clumps that would prevent fermentation.
Chill again, then stuff into Sausage Casings; we use a Kitchen Aide grinder/stuffer attachment, but if you're a masochist, you could use a funnel or Asian soup spoon.
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| Filling the casing, top left; pork mixture in bottom right |
We used more Jasmine Rice to finish the grind so it would push the last of the Pork mixture out of the feed tube into the casing. We then tasted the last runnings of the grind and rice after frying -- rather good, a bit salty, but promising.
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| Filled casings, fit to be tied |
Tie with butcher's twine ever 1 1/2 inches or so: don't twist first, it stretches the skin so much it breaks.
This will be served in 4-5 link portions, but I didn't bother leaving gaps and using double-ties: it cut easily enough and held its shape once dried.
You should probably figure out how to hang them before you have your raw sausages ready to go as this can be a fussy process, and you don't want to screw around more than you have to with raw pork.
Let hang in a 75F/24C low humidity environment; it's winter when we did this so I hung them next to our boiler where it was 80F/25C and 15% humidity. Put a tray below to catch any fat that drips out.
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| 25C @ 15% humidity, definitely not FDA certified |
Hang 2 days, then Kris suggests trying one link. If not as sour as you'd like, try again in 12-24 hours, but he says more than 4 days doesn't improve sourness, only adds funk.
Pictures below are at 1, 2, and finally 3.5 days hanging. The skin and body become more tight, and the sausage loses its pink.
Grill on well-oiled medium grill until just a little pink remains inside, or a bit more. Since it was freezing rain outside, I cooked these indoors on lightly oiled cast iron, mostly covered so they heated through, and they browned nicely.
We served these with sticky rice, stir-fried cabbage, and a mixture of fried peanuts, citrus zest (tasty!), chilis, and thinly sliced ginger.
The interior was quite dense and uniform in texture. Surprisingly, it wasn't "sour", at least that's not how I'd describe it; maybe a little sweet but there was only a little sugar in the mix.
Comments
This was a lot more work -- and stress -- than the fragrant Thai Herbal Sausage we make from the Pok Pok book, and which Kris also describes in his book (Sai Uah).
The Sticky Rice was a bit of a pain to work with because... it's sticky, and clumps together more than the Jasmine Rice which is easier to distribute through the ground Pork.
When we do western sausage, we twist, alternating clockwise and counter-clockwise -- no need for tying. But here, since we'll want to cut off portions, so we use string. Just use a tight overhand with double-knot without twisting, so you don't stretch the casing so much it breaks; it's a pain to repair, and you don't want to mess with raw meat any more than necessary.
I'd like to make 4-5 link sections that are hung individually, because hanging 20+ links supported by one casing knot scares me: if it breaks due to the heavy weight, I'd lose my entire batch. Next time, I'd probably hang a pipe horizontally from the ceiling, then suspend several 4-5 link portions from it. When tying the links, leave some extra string so you can create a loop to hang them with a carabiner or other quick-connect clip to the pipe.
Tasting
Despite being known as "sour sausage" and Kris stating that many folks assumed the sausage included lime juice, this wasn't at all sour. While hanging, it had very little smell: a relief, for a presumption of food safety, but I would have expected a lactic aroma from the fermentation. Did I do something wrong?
The good news is that it's been a few hours and we're not dead yet, or suffering the revulsion and convulsions of food poisoning.
This was good, and unusual, but wasn't "insanely great" or unusual enough to do again, like I would do for the fragrant herbal Sai Ua sasusage we've made before.
